BY JOHN VERNON LORD
Brighton: Centre for Contemporary Visual Art at the University of
Brighton, 2007.
ISBN 1 905593 04 X
£20.00
Review by Dr Leo John De Freitas
I cannot know or remember whether it was the late Charles Keeping or John Lord who once described his work to me – in a defensively disparaging tone - as ‘Victorian’. Whichever one it was I guess they were attempting to defend a set of values in their work that they thought was now unfashionable. Well, good drawing (and how many times has one had to defend that statement!) is never unfashionable – and neither is professional good judgment and a benign, even benevolent, temperament. These are qualities that both men possess, and now we have the opportunity of getting behind the mind behind the drawings behind the success of one of them; John Vernon Lord – or JVL.Drawing upon drawing – a wonderfully exact and intelligent title - is a combination of autobiography, reflections on a professional life in both commercial illustration and art school teaching together with discourses on illustrative themes and is a pot-puree of the very best kind.
The tome is organised – in addition to an Introduction by Quentin Blake - around four major sections, An Overview – Lord’s autobiography – Illustration themes, Teacher, Doodler, diarist and drawer/, which are then subdivided. The book runs to almost two hundred pages, not one of which fails to carry a drawing, either published or unpublished, by the author-illustrator.
Grouped under four headings – Fables, Picture Books and Story Books for Children, Nonsense and Myths, Legends, Sagas and Epics – are edited lectures and talks on Lord’s insights to illustrating Aesop, The Giant Jam Sandwich (his own children’s books) and The Hunting of the Snark among other texts.
Each study is instructive and entertaining, but what I also found most interesting were the snippets of ‘illustrative theory’ embedded in the texts – although one detects that Lord believes any rabidly academic theorising about illustration is to be kept a tight rein on. In fact, ‘theory’, might be the wrong description to employ here and the phrase ‘self reflective practical criticism’ better suited to the analyses offered in these studies. For example, “So, what is illustration? It is an enlightening art and its images are essentially representational. Even if they appear to be abstract they connect with something else and seldom sit apart from the context, neither physically nor conceptually.” “…two aspects of illustration…are fundamental to the making of representational images…the point of view [and] the frozen
My first meaningful meeting with JVL was when he was the overall winner of the VA Illustration Awards in 1990 for his Aesop’s fables. I recall with what immediacy this lovely book called out from the table on which over one hundred other contestants were vying for the judges’ favour, and with what confidence the judges quickly identified this set of book illustrations as the most outstanding of that year’s crop.
Reading the abridged paper on Aesop under the Fable theme in Drawing on drawing, one has confirmed what one felt at the time; namely that Lord has studied fable literature and understood its literary and cultural significance and in consequence has known how best to illustrate it. His illustrations are not only the work of a consummate exploration of a text intimately known and extensively pondered on.
Not only do the illustrations to this book have all the character of Lord’s incisive illustrative style (I have always perceived it as the scrupulously honest work of a master draughtsman) but they convey an ‘authenticity’ that commands attention to both them and the text; he hasn’t dominated the text with this distinctive drawing style but neither has he shrunk from exercising his own personal interpretation of the fables.
The two pieces (separated by almost two decades, 1982 and 2005) on the education and the teaching of students of illustration make up the section entitled Teacher. A satisfying consistency in philosophy, idealism and practice unite the papers and Lord’s convictions as a sensitive pragmatist, always concerned with finding the appropriate ‘carrot’ or ‘stick’ with which to further his student’s progress, more than reward the reader with close study.
Repeatedly throughout the pages of this book JVL exhibits the symptoms of the obsessive and in the section Doodler, diarist and drawer these symptoms become clearer!
Doodling is a “compulsion” for Lord and his impromptu ‘scribbles’ have been done in many circumstance but mainly, it seems, during the many committee meetings that characterise formal higher education these days. However, if any presiding chairman has fumed inwardly at this apparent lack of interest, even discourtesy (which Lord would never have allowed himself), in his carefully constructed agenda items he would have been wrong to have so tested his cardiovascular equilibrium. “Doodling helps me listen and take in what is being said” Lord explains, and “assists my own involvement in discussion.” The complicated, convoluted and intriguing examples in this book are amusing and, to those in the know, instructive! It could have necessarily gone un-remarked by this reviewer – so obvious is it - that Lord believes “Creative expression comes from our unconscious minds” and that these exercises are a form of fertile automatic drawings.
The Diaries section continues this suspicion of mine – that Lord is something of an obsessive - and is encouraged I believe from the following quotes from the text; “They (the diary entries) chronicle daily events, however prosaic and inconsequential they may be…the food I eat, the music listened to, the price of merchandise, and the details of a car or train journey…list writing…recording trivia.” I rest my case!
Instructively, Lord asks why he does it. “It is a tidying up process”, he tells us, in which help is given in recalling things and events and encouraging reflection on them. He wonders whether they are for posterity perhaps, but believes they are primarily for himself.
The Drawer section is an abridged version of a paper given at Kingston University in 2003 on drawing, and is particularly valuable for the step by step description and analysis of creating and completing an illustration (‘The crow and the sheep’ from Aesop’s fables) over a two day period – including comments on the specifics of the drawing as well as reflections on Life! This paper is a very real, human, document worth reading by the layman and student alike.
One unique dimension to the book – and something I have never before seen in any book on illustration – is that of the artist informing us not only how long a particular piece of art work took but also what he got paid for it! Lord has kept a record (and the book details a number of record keeping practises that smack a little of the obsessive) of the time each illustration has taken him for very good reasons. Many people, and art students in particular, dislike the idea of ‘time-management’ but Lord points out that “Juggling with time has been a constant preoccupation” of his. Combining, as he has, a busy life as a teacher with an equally busy one as a professional illustrator a knowledge of how long an illustration might take is an invaluable experience in making decisions and judgements about work.
Drawing on drawing was published to accompany the retrospective exhibition of John Lord’s work at the University of Brighton but it has a value far beyond that of being a catalogue of exhibition objects. The student, tutor, professional illustrator, art editor, publisher, bibliophile and the ubiquitous ‘art lover’ can all benefit from having this work on their shelves and I heartily recommend it.
In order to find criticism of this tome I offer the complaint that the square format is not to my liking – it just doesn’t sit comfortably on my shelves! – and that a snappier sub-title could have been found in Lord’s own description of himself “Living a life through the countless hours of picture making.”
In the manner in which coincidences happen, as I was reviewing this book the postman arrived with the ‘Summer Sale’ catalogue of the Folio Society. A full page spread was given to an offer on John Lord’s Myths and legends. Three volumes with JVL’s hall-mark drawings at half-price? Don’t you just love it when such luck comes your way?!
Each study is instructive and entertaining, but what I also found most interesting were the snippets of ‘illustrative theory’ embedded in the texts – although one detects that Lord believes any rabidly academic theorising about illustration is to be kept a tight rein on. In fact, ‘theory’, might be the wrong description to employ here and the phrase ‘self reflective practical criticism’ better suited to the analyses offered in these studies. For example, “So, what is illustration? It is an enlightening art and its images are essentially representational. Even if they appear to be abstract they connect with something else and seldom sit apart from the context, neither physically nor conceptually.” “…two aspects of illustration…are fundamental to the making of representational images…the point of view [and] the frozen moment…”
Dr Leo John De Freitas